ABOUT

​Welcome to True North Intercultural, owned and operated by Tara Harvey, Ph.D. Intercultural experiences offer amazing opportunities for learning and growth. Through such encounters with difference, we can learn about and from other perspectives, and also learn a great deal about ourselves. Based on research, literature, and my own experience, I know this type of learning and growth happens most effectively when facilitated, rather than left to chance. I have spent more than a decade researching intercultural development, developing curriculum meant to facilitate students’ intercultural learning through an international experience (from pre-departure through re-entry), and training and coaching educators in intercultural pedagogy. I bring this experience, knowledge, and passion to my work helping fellow educators and educational institutions further intercultural learning and development.

Tara Harvey, Ph.D.

I am an educator and life-long learner at heart. I am passionate about helping people learn and grow through international and intercultural experiences.

I have been in the international education field since 2000—teaching English in Spain, advising international students in the United States (at Texas A&M University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison), and working in study abroad. Since approximately 2006, I have focused on how intercultural competence is developed and how educators can help facilitate that process. My dissertation—a mixed-methods case study of an intercultural seminar taught during a semester-long study abroad experience—looked not only at the outcomes of such an intervention, but was the first of its kind to examine the complex process of facilitating intercultural development. At the University of Minnesota, I taught two innovative intercultural courses. The first—which began as Maximizing Study Abroad and later became Global Identity—was an online course for students studying abroad. The second, entitled Communication and the Intercultural Re-Entry, was for students who had recently had a significant intercultural experience (and included study abroad returnees, refugees, first- and second-generation immigrants, and a veteran). As Academic Director of Intercultural Learning at CIEE (the Council on International Educational Exchange)—a world leader in international education and exchange—I was responsible for developing the intercultural curricula for their diverse study abroad programs. I created CIEE’s signature course, Intercultural Communication and Leadership, now offered at more than 20 study centers around the world. Under my leadership, CIEE also integrated intercultural learning frameworks into more than half of the semester-long programs (in order to reach all students, not just those who opt to take a three-credit intercultural course), summer programs, and many short-term customized programs. In addition to designing curriculum, I provided training, coaching, and support for the resident staff around the world teaching these initiatives. I began True North Intercultural because I believe I can have a positive impact helping educators and educational institutions learn how to more effectively facilitate students’ intercultural learning and growth. In addition to my consulting work, I present widely on relevant topics at international education and intercultural conferences, and am an Adjunct Faculty in Intercultural Competence at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey, and an Associate Faculty at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC). I am an experienced Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), one of the most well-known and widely-used tools for assessing and building intercultural competence. In addition, I am a Senior Facilitator of the Personal Leadership methodology, a holistic approach to maximizing the learning potential inherent in intercultural experiences, improving one’s ability to work across cultural difference, and taking leadership of oneself. On a more personal note, I am married to a Spaniard, whom I met while studying abroad my junior year in Seville, Spain (study abroad truly does change lives!). Together we are navigating the complex waters of trying to raise our two children to be bilingual (as well as multicultural). We feel very fortunate to live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area of Minnesota, with its strong emphasis on international education and language immersion programs.

Why the Name True North Intercultural?

Because I believe that in learning through our intercultural experiences, we are doing much more than learning how to interact with culturally different others (a valuable goal in and of itself, of course). These experiences also offer us opportunities to learn and grow as human beings. They offer us opportunities to get in touch with who we are, to identify our deeply held values and beliefs. My goal is to help people engage in intercultural learning experiences in a way that helps them discover and live in stronger alignment with their own personal values and beliefs—in other words, to follow their own “true north”—while working effectively, appropriately, and creatively with people who hold different values and beliefs. And I strive to help fellow educators incorporate this type of student development into their own work.